Blurry Focus
by SamCyberCat
Summary: Dimitri follows a miserable trail that leads him to Bill Hawks.


**Notes:** Written as a thank you gift for for Bloody-Lucky, who wanted some Bill/Dimitri. Set two years post-PL3, with loads of spoilers for Lost Future.

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><p>Dimitri had reached a twisted sort of relationship with the concept of acceptance long ago.<p>

Claire's death was one thing that for a long time he could not bring himself to accept. At least not until even his own time machine couldn't prevent that death from happening. Claire herself had willingly accepted this to be the case, with a much greater resolve than anyone around her... He had eventually come to accept that nothing could ever truly change what had happened to her.

But in regards to his own personal existence, Dimitri was quite happy to accept that a good life was far from being something he could ever grasp. He had lived a life that he could perhaps regard as good up until the day of the explosion, but after that it had all been about recreating the time machine to save Claire. Everything that had come along with that – Bill's betrayal, Clive's false promises, the underground copy of London, the façade of a future Layton, the destruction of a large part of the real London – had just existed to further his descent into a miserable life. He was oddly all right with that.

So when he had inevitably been arrested following the events of Clive's plan, this had been just something else that he accepted. He had committed terrible crimes, after all, and he must atone for them.

As the year went on, he came to view his routine in prison as going through the motions. He would wake up each morning, wash, get dressed, eat, exercise when prompted, and then return to his cell without any considerable thought about any of it. He didn't have his time machine or Clive's plans to distract himself with any longer, so as a result, all of the borderline ingenious thoughts that used to flow through his head seemed to well up. Nothing he could create would bring any good to anyone any more, certainly not to Claire, so what was the point in trying?

But then one day, perhaps two years into his time in prison, his routine was disrupted. He was called through to where he knew other prisoners went to talk with their friends and family. It wasn't somewhere that Dimitri had been before, seeing as he lacked both friends or family. There had been no reason to go there.

It seemed that today he had been provided with a reason. Not that it turned out to be a reason that he particularly liked.

The Prime Minister of England, Bill Hawks, sat in the chair opposite him, staring grimly across. To most other people, a visit from a Prime Minister would be a great honour that they could never hope to achieve. Not to Dimitri. To Dimitri, just seeing his face was enough to snap him free from his confusion at the shift in routine and charge towards Bill, before being grabbed and restrained by the two guards that had brought him in. Though it wasn't as if he could have done much damage anyway, considering how Bill had hardly come here without bodyguards of his own. The incident with his kidnapping had made him more cautious, it seemed.

"How dare you come here!" Dimitri roared.

Bill stared at him calmly. Completely unmoved by his anger. He had been expecting it, after all.

"I've come to talk and you should be glad that I was able to take time out of my busy schedule to do so," muttered Bill.

"Why would I ever be thankful to see you again?" Dimitri demanded, "After everything you've done!"

A sneer.

"Done to who? ...To Claire? She decided to step into that time machine of her own free will. I never forced her. We were both excited about the experiment and wanted to carry on with it, regardless of what you might have believed," replied Bill, "Perhaps you were right that we should have waited, but I'm no more to blame for pushing on with the test than she is."

Dimitri shook his head; "She might have been eager to make scientific process, but you only wanted to rush the project for the sake of our benefactors!"

"Yes, I did want the funding," Bill admitted, "We weren't a bottomless pit of resources. Once we ran out of money, the project would have stopped. So I rushed to have something to show to them, because without that we wouldn't have been able to carry on."

"Not that we could carry on anyway! Not after what happened! And you were the first one to run out of there when it did!" Dimitri screeched, his arms aching from where the guards were holding him back.

"I chose to look out for myself. You chose to continue down a path that would lead to your ruin and misery. Neither of us forced what we did onto the other, so the only blame I can take away is that I never tried to stop you," mumbled Bill, "Perhaps if I'd looked into what you were doing earlier then a lot of this would have been avoided."

"You couldn't avoid my anger!" Dimitri spat.

"Inevitably, no, it would seem that I couldn't," agreed Bill, "And to answer your earlier question, I've come here because I was called to."

This settled Dimitri a little, though mostly out of confusion. He stopped struggling within the grasp of the guards, ignoring the stinging pain that ran through his arm thanks to their grip.

"Who called you?" he asked.

"It would be hard to say directly, since it was brought to my attention through a web of other people. Apparently your declining condition had led to an attempt to find anyone connected to you who might be able to talk to you. But I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that the pickings in that area are particularly slim. As hard as it might be to believe, after exhausting several other channels, it turned out that I was your last friend they had to call," Bill explained, a touch of amusement playing about his voice.

"You're no friend of mine..." whispered Dimitri.

"But I am the only person who agreed to come see you," Bill pointed out.

"I'd rather that you hadn't! That they'd just left me. I was fine. It wasn't any of their business," murmured Dimitri.

"Don't be so naïve," scolded Bill, "Whether you want them to be or not, the people here are in charge of your well-being. If they feel that you need any sort of help it is their duty to provide it."

"Then why didn't they discuss it with me before dropping me into a situation like this? Surely they must know that this sort of shock might worsen whatever condition they believe I have," Dimitri pressed.

"From what I remember of our time working together, you were never very good at listening to people who were not in your immediate sphere of interest," Bill thoughtfully replied, "Claire might have captivated you so much that you'd bend over backwards to hear to anything she said, but your arrogance and the certainty that you were always right would stop you from listening to anyone else. Just judging from personal experience. I can't claim to know what the employees here were thinking, but if you're still as self-absorbed now as you were back, then I'm not surprised if they've had troubles discussing anything with you."

Bill's words might be concise and harsh, but Dimitri couldn't bring himself to argue against him. That was just like Bill, to be able to see the worse in everyone and confront them about it so abruptly that they'd have no where to come back from.

So he instead said nothing, creating a silence so long and awkward that he even saw the guards exchange uncomfortable glances with each other over his shoulders. He almost felt sorry for them, as casual bystanders to this mess. They probably had no idea what was going or, nor would they have expected to hear the Prime Minister talk like this to a miserable prisoner.

It seemed that Bill didn't care for the silence, however, as he soon began to drum his fingers on the table irritably.

"What are you, a little kid? I can't believe you still throw these kind of huffs," he grumbled.

"I'm not, it's just that I have nothing to say to counter you and I wouldn't want to look like a fool by coming back with the wrong choice of words," Dimitri clarified.

"Then don't argue with me. Accept that I'm right so we can move on. It does happen sometimes," sighed Bill.

"I don't want to move on with this discussion," Dimitri assured him.

"Not being able to move on is another problem you seem to have, yes," Bill agreed, "But if I'm going to spend the afternoon here, it would be nice to at least attempt a civil talk with you."

"Then don't spend your time with me! Just go away and do whatever else you have to do that I'm sure is very important!" shot Dimitri, causing the guards to grip tighter onto his arms once more. Not that they needed to, he wasn't moving.

"Right now there isn't anything else that I can address," Bill informed.

"That can't be true," replied Dimitri, "The elections are rapidly approaching and your party will need you to represent them. Don't think I'm so cut off from the outside world that I don't know that much. We have newspapers here." Reading them might well have been just another part of Dimitri's routine, but he did absorb some of what he read. Especially where Bill's name cropped up.

"And what have the newspapers been saying about me? What does the London Times think about old Bill? Not that they were ever my biggest supporters," chuckled Bill. It was a hollow laugh, one that Dimitri knew too well.

He had to admit that even the newspapers who were generally more supportive of Bill's party had said very little of him lately. Most of the comments had been about how quiet he had been in the run up to the election, not even responding to jabbing critiques from opposing parties.

"Not a lot..." he concluded.

"That's because there's not a lot I can do to save face any more," Bill told him, "Despite being the victim of a kidnapping performed by such radical extremists, people have a habit of glossing over the truth to fit whatever they'd like to hear. Much of what had previously been kept quiet is out in the open now and every interview I attend is loaded with questions about the explosion from twelve years ago, the mechanical contraption that rampaged London, and other such topics. That's what people want to hear from me, not what I intend to do about taxes, education or healthcare. I'd only be damaging the party I represent to continue this way. Therefore I'm going to resign before the upcoming election. It'll probably still be at too short notice to secure us any kind of victory, but I hope that removing myself from the lime light will help build back some of the trust towards the party that has been lost."

"Forgive me if I'm not devastated by this," Dimitri said, quietly trying to take it all in.

"I wouldn't expect you to be. If anything, I'd thought you'd to be rather glad," confessed Bill.

"It makes little difference to me personally, but I do think that for Britain this will be the best choice you could make," answered Dimitri.

"But it might make a difference to you personally, if the result is that I can visit you more often," Bill hummed.

"In that case, I wish you a long and happy career as Prime Minister and that you may never retire," retorted Dimitri, hardly able to believe that he would ever say such a thing.

"Come now, Dimitri, surely that sort of cutting remark had always been my role when we were scientists. Your place was always that of the simpering victim, making everyone feel sorry for you at being on the receiving end of my awful words," reminded Bill.

"I don't think a bit of role-reversal will do you much harm," jabbed Dimitri, "And if you continue to come here, then you shouldn't expect anything other than harsh judgements."

"We have that in common then," Bill agreed.

"Why would you even want to come here, if we're just two men who hate each other?" pressed Dimitri.

Bill's gaze bore through him and he sounded unnervingly serious with what he said next; "Because I believe that I can help you. From what I've been told, this short conversation we're having is the most you've opened up to anyone the whole time you've been here. You might not like me, but surely even you can agree that having a chance for your mind to be engaged is exactly what you need."

"Why would you want to help me?" Dimitri continued. He had to keep asking questions. If he lets himself get caught up analysing what Bill's saying, then Bill's won. Just like back when they were scientists.

"Do I need a reason?" Bill deflected.

"Yes. You don't do anything unless you gain something from it," Dimitri accused.

"Then perhaps all I want to gain from this is peace of mind," Bill offered.

"If that's what you're after, I'll have to ask you not to bother. After everything you've done, the last thing I'd ever want to do is provide you with that," assured Dimitri, "I'm not a side project to help you feel better about yourself."

"I know you're not. If I didn't know that then I wouldn't have let you go off on your own after the accident at the laboratory. I'd have forced you to come with me," said Bill.

"You could never have done that," Dimitri whimpered.

"Some days I like to wonder what might have happened if I had done. But it's in the past now and, as we both well know, no one can change the past," Bill sighed.

"No, and I'm not interested in trying any more," promised Dimitri, "That would be an insult to Claire's memory and what she taught us."

"Then instead, what is it that you now focus on?" Bill questioned.

At the moment, Dimitri had to admit that he focused on nothing. There was no future open to him that was any different to the present that he experienced each day in prison. A present that did not provide him with anything that might engage his mind. As much as he was loathe to admit it, Bill just being here was sending a lot of cogs whirring inside his head, if only so that he didn't lose this argument.

...Were they even having an argument any more? Dimitri isn't sure what to call where this was going.

"I focus on... on finding something new to focus on..." he murmured, not even sure where such a thought had come from.

"In that case, you can allow me to be the something new that you focus on," suggested Bill, "I'll come here at irregular intervals – you can never be sure when I will. Because of that, you'll be forced to focus on ways you can counter my words during our discussions, seeing that you might need to be ready to have them at the drop of a hat."

Dimitri shook his head, "I don't want to do that."

"Well then, you can refuse to see me when I come. But you'll do so knowing that it was because you could not face me. Therefore, any debates that we might have had, I win by default," Bill concluded.

When Dimitri continued to stand there, staring down at the floor, Bill deduced that their discussion today was over. He rose out of his seat, motioning to his bodyguards that he was going to leave.

"I'll give you a head start on this occasion by telling you I'll be here again next Monday. You can decide by then if you want to see me or not. But seeing that I will have announced by resignation publicly by then, we'll have a lot to discuss, I imagine," he went on.

After that, he didn't bother pausing to wait for a response. Dimitri's pride wouldn't allow him to lose if Bill did linger around and the Prime Minister did want to end this with the possibility that they might talk again. So instead, he left the room without looking back, leaving Dimitri to wallow in his own confusion.

In turn, Dimitri simply let himself be led from the room by the guards. He felt so drawn inside himself that without their escort he probably wouldn't have made it back to his own cell. But it was a different type of withdrawn to the kind he'd been experiencing up until now. It wasn't the aimless withdrawn of having nothing in the world worth dealing with, but instead the withdrawn of his mind being entirely concentrated on what he can do about his current situation. How could he possibly counter Bill?

...That is, assuming that he does want to speak with him again. Which in itself is an issue that Dimitri needs to overcome. He didn't want to talk to Bill again, that much he was certain of, but if he didn't agree to these visits then it would be because he didn't think that he could match Bill's wit in any discussion they might have. And Dimitri was certain that he could match his wit in anything.

When he was left alone in his cell, Dimitri rushed to grab every newspaper he could find, regardless which publication it was. He poured through them all for any mention of Bill's name. There might not be many right now, but once Bill resigned everyone would want to have their say. And Dimitri would take it all in, read as many opinions as he could. Just so that he was ready.

So that, when Bill came back, he would put him in his place. He would not be made to look a fool, like Bill so often made him look when they worked together all those years ago. Since those days, Dimitri has grown and changed in ways that Bill has not. He couldn't lose to a pampered man who had forgotten the hard sciences.

...Through this focus, Dimitri unknowingly began to heal. All thanks to Bill Hawks.


End file.
